Make a mess

I sat and watched this whole thing unfold. Ellen found a piece of paper on her desk. She tore it into little pieces and put it on the floor.

She took her hand broom and swept it into the dust pan.

Then she walked it over to the trash can and threw it away. She was so proud of herself!

Ellen's vacation

This will be an interesting post since I wasn't around when any of these pictures were taken. I was given some updates when I called to see how things were going, but some of you who are reading this were probably there when it happened anyway.

I love these picture of Ellen. They sum her up pretty well. For one, she is eating and drinking, which she does most of the time. Second of all she is sitting on someones lap. Third, she is trying on new clothes. Every time Ellen goes to Desloge she comes home with great, new stuff. (Thank you!) And last but not least she is singing! To me it looks like she could be saying, "Thank you...and I'm here all week!"

Trip to Grant's Farm:
Ellen is totally into animals right now. So, when mom and dad said they wanted to take her to Grant's Farm I knew she would love it. Of course she is decked out in her animal clothes and sunglasses ready to see some animals.

I can tell by Ellen's mouth that she is saying "choo-choo" on the train with Dustin.

Lindsay was helping Ellen feed the baby goat a bottle. They said the goat just sucked the milk down in no time flat.

It was a really hot day so I think Ellen and Aunt Lindsay were relieved to get a much needed water break!

Here are the animals that Ellen saw at Grant's Farm. When I talked to Ellen on the phone she only talked about the camel, so, I guess it was her favorite. Mom said she was going to print the animal pictures off and make Ellen an animal photo album. Ellen is going to love that!

Pickin' Peaches

After seeing the animals Ellen went to the orchard to pick peaches. She got to ride on the wagon and pick a peach right off the tree.

After Ellen got back to Na Na and Paw Paw's house they decided to go for a swim. Ellen is learning how to blow bubbles and thinks it's great. She is also getting more brave by "jumping" off the side of the pool into the water. Swimming must work up a big appetite because Ellen was serving tea in her play house.

Fancy Ellen

Yes, Ellen has some curls, but when she goes to see Na Na they seem to get much bigger. She (my mom) knows that she can get away with it since I'm not there to tame them down! : )

"Vacation" if you can call it that

Tim and I ate breakfast at Brenda's Cafe here in Bolivar. We decided that since we were on "Vacation" we wouldn't dirty any dishes before we left town.

Here I am holding all of our bags after a successful day of outlet shopping. Shopping is so much easier without a stroller.

We didn't make any reservations before we headed to Branson...since there are a ton of places to choose from. We ended up at this "lovely" place, The Lodge of the Ozarks. I told Tim when we got there that I didn't want to stay at a place that you had to enter your room from the outside. (That was a little harder than you think.) We checked out a few places, one was pretty far from where we wanted to be, the second one had a lobby that smelled like smoke. So, we found this place right on the strip. It was close to the go-carts, put-put golf and White Water. We did get a good deal on the room, but as soon as we walked in I noticed a funny smell. We thought it would go away if we opened the window but it didn't. I guess we finally got accustomed to the smell and forgot about it until we left the room and came back in.

This is where we ate dinner on Thursday night. We had heard a lot of really great things about it so we were pretty excited to try it out. When we walked in the door the smell of steak was amazing. Too bad we couldn't say the rest of the experience was as great. The inside reminded us of a Denny's restaurant that had been "renovated" into a steak house. Tim's steak was so dry and our waitress seemed like she was going to stress out before she even got our drinks to us. So, we were batting 0 for 2 so far on our "vacation"!

So, when you are in Branson and you don't want to go see The Box Car Willie Show, what do you do? You play Put-Put-Golf with 150 other people! We decided to not play golf on the strip since it was so busy. But I guess 148 other people had the same idea. We had a really good time playing at Pirate's Cove; It had two different courses to choose from. Of course Tim and I challenged each other to the more difficult one and I lost by one stroke. I was leading for the first few holes, but lost it soon after that. Tim had 3 hole-in-ones and I got 1! (I thought that was pretty good.) We took a touristy picture with the pirate before we left.

On Friday we spent most of the day at White Water. It was a beautiful day to be outside and the lines were not long at all. Tim did get a little sun burnt even after putting sunscreen on, but other than that we had a blast. Here is a picture of our favorite ride, Kalani Towers. You actually felt like you were free falling for a few seconds. When you are sitting at the top ready to go, you can't see the slide below you. It was a crazy feeling.

All in all we had a fun time getting away. Thanks mom and dad for watching Ellen for us!

Desloge or Bust!

Ellen is preparing for a trip to Desloge. Tim and I will be meeting Dad and Lindsay on Wednesday. We thought it would be a good idea for him to bring someone along...just in case!

Tim and I are celebrating our 6th anniversary today! We are going to have some time to ourselves while Ellen is living it up with Na Na and Paw Paw (and whoever else seems to stop by.) Our plan is to make a short trip to Branson to do some shopping and playing around. We are going to take full advantage of not having a child and go play put-put golf, drive go-carts, and spend a day at White Water.

Hopefully we will have some pictures from our fun weekend(s)!

First trip to the zoo

For Ellen's birthday, Tim and I decided it would be fun to take her to the zoo. We are fortunate enough to have a small one here in Springfield. So, last Friday we packed a lunch and headed to the zoo to see the animals. Ellen is totally into animals right now, so we knew she would have a blast.

Tim and Ellen standing outside the zoo entrance.

Ellen wore her zoo outfit!

First stop...the elephants! We made it just in time to watch the elephants get a bath. It was kind of hard getting Ellen to leave and go see the other animals.

Of course there were monkeys and Ellen wanted to "talk" to each one. She has really gotten the monkey sound down pat.

The giraffe was probably Ellen's other most favorite animal to visit. The zoo has a sky deck that puts you at eye level with the giraffes. They had a place for you to buy crackers and you could feed them right there. Ellen loved it!




Turtles with unique shells and Cranes.






An alligator, huge tortoises and kangaroos!

The Hippopotamus was probably one of my favorites. I was just astonished at how big it actually was.

Ellen also enjoyed feeding the goats. She wasn't scared at all!

Well, that was our trip to the zoo in a nutshell. Ellen loved the animals and was talking about it for days after we got home.